Tigers edge A’s 6-5 on a Rajai Run

One of the most anticipated pitching matchups of the first half of 2014 wound up being fairly forgettable for both starters.

The A’s made Tigers ace Max Scherzer labor, fouling off dozens of pitches, while Detroit put up more runs against American League ERA leader Sonny Gray than any team this season. And neither starter was around for a decision.

In the end, the difference was speed and alert play, as the Tigers topped Oakland 6-5 on Tuesday at the Coliseum. In the eighth, former A’s outfielder Rajai Davis, who joined the Tigers as a free agent last winter. Davis pinch ran in the eighth, took second on a passed ball and then stole third, audaciously, on catcher Derek Norris’ throw back to reliever Fernando Abad.

“I won’t lie, my heart stopped when I saw him take off,” Detroit manager Brad Ausmus said. Tigers closer Joe Nathan said the entire building was taken by surprise.

Neither Abad nor Norris was in the clubhouse to answer questions, but A’s manager Melvin said he’s not sure that Abad would have been able to get Davis even had he thrown to third immediately.

Davis is known for plays like that, however; when he is casually heading back to the second-base bag but with an eye on home plate, some catchers stroll out toward the mound to return the ball to the pitcher.

“He timed it perfectly, as soon as he let go of the ball, he took off,” Melvin said. “That’s a big chance he took, and it paid off.”

Davis was safe without a throw, then he came in to score when Austin Jackson narrowly avoided being thrown out on the back end of a potential double-play grounder – a half step slower, and the A’s would have been out of the inning.

“Any time he rolls over one, it’s like a jailbreak for him,” Melvin said of Jackson. “He just put it in the right spot.”

Oakland had held the lead at one point: John Jaso, the guy Scherzer smoked on the arm in the third inning, raising a big insta-knot, hammered a two-run homer off Scherzer in the fourth to put the A’s ahead in the fourth, but Torii Hunter responded with a game-tying homer off Dan Otero in the seventh. Jaso was the leader in the make-Scherzer-work gang, seeing 22 pitches in three plate appearances.

Jaso said that he was having trouble with Scherzer’s changeup all night – until the homer, but only because Scherzer left it over the plate.

Jaso said that the pitch that hit him must have broken a blood vessel because it blew up so fast that there was no doubt he’d been hit. Initially, the Tigers thought the ball had come off his bat because “it sounded like it hit the bat, but it was just the bone,” Jaso said.

Detroit scored twice in the first inning, Hunter doubled and scored on a base hit by Miguel Cabrera and after Gray walked Victor Martinez, J.D. Martinez doubled in Cabrera. Cabrera struck again in the third, drilling a solo homer to left. The last time he homered off Gray: Game 5 of last year’s ALDS, which the Tigers won 3-0 to bounce Oakland from the postseason.

Gray said it was the same exact pitch, too, a four-seam fastball. “I thought I had him leaning out over and made a good pitch. It just was a good swing,” he said.

Gray has a strange trend developing: Odd-numbered innings are not his friend, but even numbers are. He’s got a 3.92 ERA in odd innings and a 0.51 ERA in evens.

On Tuesday, he allowed a run in an even-numbered inning for just the second time all year: In the fourth, Jackson singled with one out and Alex Avila whacked an RBI double.

That gave the Tigers four runs and ended Gray’s string on allowing no more than three runs per start to open the season. He’s the first A’s pitcher since at least 1914 (when proper records begin) to go 10 starts in a row allowing no more than three runs to begin a season.

It was the longest such streak to open a season by an American League pitcher since Pedro Martinez’s 12 in a row in 2001.

Gray said he actually felt great coming in – maybe too great; he was leaving his two-seamer up in the zone too much, he said.

The A’s runs also came in dribs and drabs. Yoenis Cespedes led off the second with an infield single and Jed Lowrie doubled him h0me. With one out, Alberto Callaspo provided an RBI double of his own.

Oakland took the lead for the first time in the fourth, which began with Josh Reddick’s single to center. Callaspo also singled, putting men at the corners – and then Scherzer balked Reddick in and Callaspo to second.

With two outs, Jaso clubbed his homer to right, putting the A’s up 5-4. Scherzer, the reigning Cy Young winner, has given up 12 runs in his past two starts.

In a one-run game, every little thing can count, but Melvin said he had zero issue with Coco Crisp being thrown out at third base with no outs in the first. It took a great throw, and as Melvin noted, Crisp’s stolen-base percentage is off the charts, so he has the green light. That was the second time in 10 attempts Crisp has been thrown out this year.